Sachin

Mumbai, July 7: Pepsi has decided to end its innings with Sachin Tendulkar.

The cricket icon, a company source said, had not “got back” to a request to “lower his price” for renewing his contract, which expired around two months back.

Sachin now earns Rs 4 crore from Pepsi every year through promotions and ads. The decision to call it a day with him comes months after the company parted ways with “war horses” Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly.

Singapore’s World Sports Group is negotiating for Sachin. “We asked him to lower his price but he hasn’t got back. We can’t wait forever,” a PepsiCo India source said.

Other insiders said the Master Blaster had asked for a “huge” hike. “We went back to the drawing board to see if it made more sense to put money on young cricketers who fit into our Youngistan campaign than shell out a huge sum for someone like Sachin,” the source said.

Pepsi insiders are said to be debating whether to replace Sachin with Dhoni or a group of youngsters like Ishant Sharma and Rohit Sharma. “Dhoni charges more than Sachin to shoot an ad but his yearly contract rates are lower. Besides, he is India’s new icon,” the source said.

Brand mavens aren’t convinced, though, that the 35-year-old’s aura is fading. “Sachin can never be over-valued. He is just not a huge cricketer. He is a national icon,” says ad guru and Genesis chief executive Prahlad Kakkar.

Many companies had spent a large chunk of their ad budgets on the Indian Premier League, Kakkar said. “So it may be tough for many to afford Sachin. But there will always be others who can and will snap him up.”